The era from 1881 to 1936 was a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society in which the Chinese nation suffered a great deal of disasters and faced a serious threat of life and death.

In 1894-1895, Japan provoked the Sino-Japanese War in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, and China lost. The treaty of shimonoseki signed by China and Japan after the war greatly deepened the semi-colonization of China. In the late 19th century and 197s, Japan invaded Taiwan Province and extorted 5, taels of silver from China as a condition for withdrawing troops. After that, Japan began to plan to invade China.

In China at that time, it was generally regarded as a despicable activity to "sell one's soul to foreign devils". In 1898, at the age of 18, Lu Xun left his hometown with eight silver dollars that his loving mother tried to borrow, and later entered Nanjing Naval Academy.